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Sandbox6
You are waiting in line outside an artfully decorated building. A roadway leads from the building to an enormous wooden gate reminiscent of Jurassic Park or King Kong. Every minute or so, oddly shaped vehicles exit the building and move along rails toward the gate. The gate opens slowly. The vehicles merge from their separate rails and pass through the gate in single file. And the gate closes behind them. The line you are in is long, but moves quickly. Once inside the building, you see parallel rows of vehicles on rails. The ones in front are empty, awaiting new passengers. Those to the rear have passengers exiting. As you are directed to one of the forward parked vehicles, you hear a description of what you are about to experience. You will travel back in time and witness the meteor impact that ended the age of the dinosaurs. There will be rolling motion, turbulence, very strong winds, bright light, sudden heat and a lot of blowing sand. For enjoyment of the full effects, you will have to wear a large pair of goggles at all times. You step aboard and move to one of the several forward-facing seats. The vehicle is a platform shaped like an oblong saucer. The rear and top of the vehicle are completely enclosed by opaque side-and-rear panels and a roof, but the forward sides and the front are open, affording you an unobstructed view. From your seat you can see where the rails merge just outside the building, and the enormous gate some distance away. When you are seated and buckled, an attendant gives you a pair of goggles large enough to fit comfortably over eyeglasses. As you are putting them on, panels that were hidden in the sides and front of the vehicle slowly rise up, blocking your view of the outside world. You are now completely enclosed. Mounted on the forward panel is a square video monitor showing the image of a man. He apologizes for the delay and says he needs your undivided attention for just a moment. He explains, again, what you are about to witness, reminds you that the goggles must be worn at all times for your enjoyment and safety, and invites you to enjoy the ride. Your vehicle begins moving forward. The front and side panels lower, once again revealing the outside world. You feel a cool breeze as your vehicle exits the building and merges with others into a single line approaching the opening gate. As you pass through the gate, you see the vehicle in front of you suddenly accelerate and drop out of sight. Then you can see where the rails end, at the edge of a cliff! Before you can react, your own vehicle accelerates toward the cliff. In a second you are flying off into the air. You descend in a gliding motion. There are no more rails. You are flying, downward, toward the floor of a vast valley. You can see that other vehicle veering off to the right, and another further away to the left. Your own vehicle levels off just above the ground, and you maneuver slowly through a jungle populated with dinosaurs. You ascend above the trees and see many large dinosaurs and a huge volcano sputtering ash and lava. Beyond the volcano is a vast ocean. The ride continues for several minutes, until a bright light appears in the sky and moves downward toward the ocean shoreline miles away. At impact there is a tremendous explosion. A fireball erupts. Your vehicle is buffeted by terrific hot wind. You see forest fires, burning ash descending all around you, and meteor fragments hurtling in all directions. A tsunami wave begins to engulf the valley. Your vehicle narrowly escapes and is hurtling out-of-control toward the volcano. You are about to crash. The front and side panels rise up and a voice says, "Brace for impact." You feel a sudden jolt, and everything goes dark and silent and still. A second later the panels lower once again and you find yourself gliding gently on rails above the amusement park. You are circling back toward the rear of the building where you started. It was all an illusion of course. Your vehicle never flew or left the rails. The goggles were not really to protect your eyes. They were 3D glasses. The panels that rose up at the beginning were super high-definition video screens disguised look like panels. They only appeared to lower. Everything you saw from the moment your vehicle began to move until you were gliding back to the starting point was just a super high-definition motion picture consisting of computer-generated 3D imagery synchronized to the movement of your vehicle along a winding course of rails. The method is about the same as that used in an ordinary 3D motion theater, where the audience is seated on a platform that is lifted, tilted, and shaken by hydraulic lifts. But using rails simplifies the mechanics and makes the illusion flawlessly realistic. In a stationary theater there is no way to simulate prolonged inertial effects. But on rails, even the sensation of lengthy ultra-high-speed turns can be replicated perfectly, even at a very safe and slow speed. This is done simply by curving the rails more sharply and prolonging the length of the turning in a spiral construction. Such rails can accommodate many moving theaters simultaneously, and different motion pictures can be produced to use the very same rails for completely different rides, all with a minimum of maintenance because there are no hydraulics.